Summit League Preview: South Dakota Women Host Omaha, Oral Roberts

There's no team out there ready for some home cooking more than South Dakota.

The Coyotes are home for five of their last seven games in the 2019 Summit League regular season after logging more than 10,000 travel miles and playing on their own floor just five times since December first of last year.

USD (20-3/8-1 Summit League) has won seven straight and is the first Summit League team to reach 20 wins this season.

The Golden Eagles (12-11/5-5 Summit League) have won two-of-three and had South Dakota State down 12 points after one quarter last week, before falling at home to the Jackrabbits.

ORU's calling card is three-point shooting. The Golden Eagles are the third most prolific long-range shooting team in the country and have nailed 64 triples in their last five games, including 13 in their first meeting with USD.

Guard Maya Mayberry has been red hot lately, scoring 71 points on 55 percent shooting in her last three games. Guard Sarah Garvie is coming off of a four three-pointer game against SDSU.

Oral Roberts has been hitting the offensive glass hard lately, notching double digits in boards in three of their last four games.

Tipoff is 1:00 PM, Saturday in Vermillion.

South Dakota had to rally from 10 points down with 9:24 to play in the first meeting between these two this season.

Oral Roberts had grabbed that lead thanks to the three-point shooting of Lakota Beatty, who nailed seven threes in the second half in Tulsa. She led the Golden Eagles with 27 points.

The Coyotes got 26 points from Allison Arens and 25 from Ciara Duffy and held ORU to just two field goals in the final nine minutes, escaping with a 76-72 win.

South Dakota ran their win streak to seven games with a 71-49 win at Purdue-Fort Wayne, last Saturday (February 2).

The Mastodons got off to a fast start, shooting 55 percent in the first quarter and leading by as many as seven in the first half as USD went more than three minutes without scoring at one point.

The Coyotes defense responded in the second quarter, forcing eight turnovers which allowed the offense to tie things up at halftime.

The second half was all USD.

The Coyotes shot 54 percent in the second 20 minutes, outscoring Fort Wayne 37-15. The Mastodons could only manage five made baskets in the second half.

South Dakota was led by Arena and Duffy, who each scored 19 points. Taylor Frederick added 15 points and six steals.

I talked with Coyotes head coach Dawn Plitzuweit about last week's win and the match-ups with Omaha and Oral Roberts: